The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for releasing local data contents for an IP-based data access as well as an associated communication system, digital storage medium, computer program product and computer program and particularly an apparatus to and method for realising a simplified release of data contents on a local media server by use of an already existing VoIP connection.
Fixed networks such as analogue or digital fixed networks are increasingly substituted or at least supplemented by packet-switched networks, wherein particularly packet-switched networks according to the Internet Protocol (IP) are used.
In such packet-switched networks in most countries the public IP addresses are only assigned dynamically, i.e. a network node or a so-called gateway at a user side normally is assigned a new public IP address every 24 hours. In order to access to private data contents such as audio, video and/or image data of a providing party or provider the accessing party has to know the public IP address of the provider. However, because it changes daily and is not recognizable immediately the accessing party accessing to the data contents over the packet-switched network is faced with a problem which is not easy to solve.
At present solutions already exist such as DynDNS (Dynamic Domain Name System) which are capable to link such a dynamic IP address with a static name. Herein a disadvantage exists in that this service first has to be configured elaborately and moreover doesn't always work reliably. Particularly after a change of the public IP address it often lasts up to several hours until the static name is linked with the new IP address and is known at the DNS-servers within the packet-switched network such as the internet. If the obstacle occurring in connection with the IP address is overcome the accessing party additionally has to authenticate himself using a user ID and password. Such an authorisation verification consisting for example of a user ID and password has to be reported in advance to the accessing party for example by e-mail.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus and method for releasing local data contents for an IP-based data access as well as an associated communication system, digital storage medium, computer program product and computer program which enable a simplified access as well as an improved user comfort.